Chapter 13

Setting Their Tongues Wagging:

Speaking and Discussion

In This Chapter

▶ Starting the ball rolling

▶ Making the conversation last

▶ Sparking civil discussions

▶ Creating a discussion lesson

S

peaking is the most important skill in English language teaching. It’s

almost impossible to have true mastery of a language without actually

speaking it. So in this chapter, I show you how to get your students chatting,

arguing and generally wagging those tongues in English.

Getting Students Talking

In general, to encourage speaking in the early stages of a course and with

students who are a little timid, give plenty of guidance on what the conversa-

tions should be about. You can give students a list of questions to ask each

other or specific topics and lots of language input first. So before the activ-

ity gets under way make sure that the class knows the necessary grammar

and vocabulary with appropriate examples. In this way students don’t have

to think about what to say, only how to say things. Set speaking tasks for

pair group work as often as possible. The tasks should have clear aims and

involve taking turns, so say ‘Find out what your partner thinks about X and

make some notes’, rather than just telling them to discuss X. The advantage

is that the students are more aware of the need to get the other person’s view

instead of talking about themselves the whole time.